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Carbon nanoflorets made by IIT Bombay researchers can convert incident sunlight to heat with 87% efficiency.

Facts About:

Carbon nanoflorets (NCFs) are a newly discovered type of carbon nanostructure that resembles tiny marigold flowers.

• They are made up of a network of carbon nanotubes arranged in a conical microcavity structure. NCFs have a number of unusual properties, including:

Broadband absorption: NCFs can absorb sunlight at all wavelengths, from ultraviolet to infrared.

• This is because their conical microcavity structure traps light for a longer period of time, allowing it to be absorbed by the carbon nanotubes.
• They are also extremely black, absorbing more than 95% of sunlight across a broad spectrum of wavelengths.

High light-heat conversion efficiency: NCFs can convert sunlight to heat with an efficiency of up to 87%.

• This is much higher than the efficiency of other solar-thermal materials, such as photovoltaic cells.

Low thermal conductivity: NCFs have a very low thermal conductivity, which means that they can efficiently convert sunlight to heat without losing much of the energy to conduction.

A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) reported that NCFs could convert incident sunlight to heat with an efficiency of 87%.

• This is significantly higher than the efficiency of other solar thermal materials, such as black carbon.
• It effectively absorbs over 97 per cent of sunlight's ultraviolet, visible, and infrared components, converting them into thermal energy.
• The resulting heat can be efficiently transferred to either air or water for practical applications.
• Research reveals that NCFs can raise the temperature of the surrounding air from room temperature to 60 degrees Celsius, providing smoke-free space-heating solutions.